Wednesday, June 18

Ridiculously Practical Meals: Fried Pasta

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Don't you love it when dinner is free? That's exactly the reason I love leftovers... but sometimes leftovers can be less than appetizing. For some reason, whenever I make pasta I make too much. I love pasta, but I can only eat so much. When I'm pouring the noodles in the pot to boil my eyes must just be bigger than my stomach. Unfortunately pasta just never tastes nearly as good out of the microwave. So what's the solution? Frying it, of course!

Frying pasta isn't exactly a new thing. In fact, I'm pretty sure Italians have been doing it to their leftovers for as long as the Chinese have been frying their leftover rice (I could be wrong about that, I've never actually studied the history of fried foods). One of the reasons frying pasta has lasted through the years is that is delicious, and you can do it to pretty much any pasta dish! Be warned, the dish does need to have at least sat over night. Don't think you can make some pasta and then throw it in a frying pan right away, it just doesn't taste right.

So what do you do? Coat the bottom of your frying pan with a thin layer of olive oil, add your pasta, sprinkle a small amount of oil on top of the pasta. Fry on high heat. The amount of time you fry is really all about personal preference. You could just fry the pasta until it's warm, or you can fry it until the noodles are crunchy. I personally prefer crunchy noodles. Eye ball this, the amount of time it takes will vary with the number of noodles and the size of your pan. It took me under ten minutes to get my noodles to the level of crunch I wanted.

Tips: You can do this to pretty much any type of pasta, but if that pasta has some leaves (mine had basil and mint) I like to take the old ones out before frying my pasta and then refresh it with some new leaves after it is done frying. Also, some people (like me) tend to take a lot of the meat out of the pasta the first time it is served. If you tend to do this you might want to add some more meat before you fry your pasta. If your toppings are evenly spread through the pasta, there is no need to add more.